Rasmalai ~ Cottage cheese balls in sweetened thickened milk

This is my 250th post and today is a very Special day to celebrate, It's an Indian Festival today : Eid. To Muuh Mitha Ho Jaye with A Bengali Delicacy and all Indians favorite : Rasmalai.

Ras Malai is a dessert where dumplings made from cottage or ricotta cheese soaked in sweetened, thickened milk, flavoured with cardamom and saffron. To make rasmalai, you have to make Rasgulla or cottage cheese dumpling first. This is often made at home in any celebration or occassion.

Rasgullas or rasogolla as we call it in Bengali, are homemade cheese or paneer balls soaked in chilled sugar syrup. This recipe is made using a pressure cooker.
You need for making Rasgulla
Milk : I litre
Lemon juice : about 2-3 tblsp.
Sugar : 1 cup
Water : 3 cups
Saffron strands : few
Rose water : 1 tsp.

How To:
Making  Paneer :

• Boil the milk in a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, making sure not to burn milk.
• As the milk comes to a boil, add the lemon juice and stir the milk gently with a spoon. The milk fat will start separating from the whey, turn off the heat.

Preparing the paneer :

• Once the milk fat/cheese has seperated from the whey, drain the whey using a strainer lined with cheesecloth or muslin cloth. Gather whole cheese inside the muslin cloth, tie a knot to secure and rinse under cold water. This process takes out the sourness of lemon from milk fat.
• To take out the excess water, squeeze the cloth well, hang it somewhere for about 1 hour. Taking right amount of water out of the milk fat/paneer is the most important part of this recipe.
• To check if enough water is out of the paneer, take a little piece of paneer on your palm and rub with your fingers. After rubbing the paneer for about 10-15 seconds, you should be able to make a firm but smooth ball. then you know you are ready to make Rasgulla.
• Once the paneer is drained, place on a wide plate and knead the paneer for 3-4 minutes or until you can form the whole paneer into a soft dough like chapati/puri.

Making Rasgulla :

• Divide the dough into equal size round balls. To make the panner balls, take little amount of panner in your left palm and roll the panner putting little pressure with the other palm and then form into a ball without any crack.
• Mix sugar and water in a pressure cooker on medium high heat and bring to a boil. Add the paneer balls, saffron strands and rose water in it, then close the pressure cooker. After the pressure cooker starts steaming, turn the heat to medium and cook for about 7-10 minutes. Note: Make sure the pressure cooker is large enough to accommodate all Rasgullas, as they will expand to about double the size while cooking in the syrup. Otherwise, do it in batches.
• Remove from heat and pour into a big bowl with sugar syrup. Bring them into room temperature before making malai with them.
• You can serve rasgullas as it is. Serve them chilled or in room temperature.You can keep them fresh in refrigerator for 7-10 days.

 

How to make the malai for Rasmalai :::
You need :
Milk : 1 ltr.(full cream milk preferably)
Sugar : 1/2 cup(as per your taste)
Cardamom powder : 1 tblsp.
Almonds/Pistachios : for garnishing
Saffron Stands : for garnishing(optional)

How To :

• In a pan, boil 1 litre of full cream milk till reduced and thickened to half of its original volume. In between, add sugar according to your taste. Don't add altogether, add little at a time. Keep scraping off the milk skin from the side of the pan and add to the boiled milk. It gives extra taste and texture to the malai.
• When milk has thickened some more, add the syrup soaked Paneer balls/rasgullas (after squeezing a little) slowly one by one to the milk mixture and and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off the fire, add the cardamom powder.
• Garnish with pistas and almonds and few saffron strands. Serve chilled.
• Rasmalai is best enjoyed when chilled. 

  

 It's not necessary to make rasgulla at home always, nowadays canned rasgullas are easily available in all Indian stores outside India. But once in a while, you can try making them fresh at home, it's worth all the time and effort. ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!